buick brake drums?

A friend of mine got a 64 wildcat 4dr for free, running nailhead and all, anyway we were debating if a guy could still use those brakes for anything else? The drums are finned so how can you tell, is it just up to 60? - thanks

 

Alot of folks run the Buick drum set up--and we have found big fins on cars as new as 68 (rivera)--those are the 45 fins. there are also "little fin" drums that have like 90 or something. we are using a set of 45's on sciflyer72's truck, and 45 fin metric aluminum drums from the 80's or the rear. (he is running a 10 bolt) and, faith and begorrah, his badass wilson welding backing plates got installed just before new years!

 

OK, so then how much of the total brake set up can you use, from the backing plate out or just the drums themselves?

 

I'm useing '62 backing plates and '68 (90 fin) drums on the 9" Ford that goes under my roadster.

You have to redrill the backing plate but its no biggy.

Anything can be adapted if you have imagination and motivation.

its easier to use the buick backing plates as those are pretty big brakes, but your choice I guess.

 

Thanks guys, we'll have to do some measuring and brainstorming to see if the whole rearend would work for say a coupe depending on how much channel it would have width wise, and could you also redrill the backing plates on the front to fit on model spindals or no?

 

They should redrill just fine.

I'm guessing that a '64 Cat has a pretty wide rear. Somewhere around 60" or so but I could be mistaken. Those rear drums are going to be iron on that one. Only the fronts should be aluminum.

 

Cool, thanks for the good info - to young to know what that stuff was like off the show room.

 

The front backing plates on your year buick have a very odd mounting shape. Very difficult to adapt to any other spindles. The backing plates to use with those front drums are the 58-60 buick models. Many ways to use those aluminum drums on the hot rods. The 45 fin drums are getting hard to come by and pricey. I have seen them sell at auction for over $300 a pair. Sounds like you got a great deal Steve

 

Forgot to add the 45 fin aluminum drums were used from around 59 to around 65. The the 90 fin aluminum drums were used until around 68 when disc brakes came out. The 45 fin and 90 fin drums will interchange. Steve

 

that's awsome, glad to hear that they are the 45's, but yeah he got a real good deal, this car had been a one family car and been in a garage for the last 22 yrs, so the friend that gave it away said he just wasn't going to do anything with it so one of us could have it if we got it moved, you know how long that took. well he had a place for it and now were trying to figure out how to use it, it's almost a shame to part it out, it really only needs minor body work.

 

The 45 fins came out in '58, and lasted until '64/'65.
The 90-fins can be found all the way up to '70/'71, before disc brakes became standard equimpent. If a car wasn't ordered with disc brakes, it got finned drums.
The rears on these cars are also 12-inch drums, but they're iron.
-Brad

 

Has anyone out there mounted them on a '55-'64 Chevy rear-end?